September 12, 2013

An Industry Of Umpires

In baseball, the players play the game and the umpires'
make sure there is a smooth and decorous process.

The fans come to see the
talent of the players. When umpires impose themselves
disproportionately on the flow of the game they are roundly booed.

The best umpires are the ones who are virtually invisible. The worst umpires are the ones who think the game is about them.

A very strange phenomenon has happened in the advertising industry. Almost unnoticed, the umpires have taken over the game.

The players -- the people who actually make the ads -- have been marginalized. They are now "support."

The business is in such a state of disarray that the umpires are playing the game. The account managers, the planners, the strategists and data analysts are now taking the at-bats and running the bases.

There has always been a certain type of activist "umpire" in the ad business. Like in baseball, the really good ones are catalysts for a smoother, more enjoyable and better played game. The really bad ones think the game is about them.

The sad thing is that while baseball fans would never pay to watch umpires play ball, clients are actually more comfortable with this arrangement.

Something has gone very wrong. Either the players no longer have the talent to keep the paying customers interested, or the customers have forgotten what the game is about.

Ad Contrarian Says:

"Delusional thinking isn't just acceptable in marketing today -- it's mandatory.""Good ads appeal to us as consumers. Great ads appeal to us as humans."

"Social Media: Tens of millions of disagreeable people looking to make trouble."

"As an ad medium, the web is a much better yellow pages and a much worse television."

"Marketers prefer precise answers that are wrong to imprecise answers that are right."

"Brand studies last for months, cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and generally have less impact on business than cleaning the drapes."

"The idea that the same consumer who was frantically clicking her TV remote to escape from advertising was going to merrily click her mouse to interact with it is going to go down as one of the great advertising delusions of all time."

"Nobody really knows what "creativity" is. Every year thousands of people take a pilgrimage to find out. This involves flying to Cannes, snorting cocaine, and having sex with smokers."

"Marketers habitually overestimate the attraction of new things and underestimate the power of traditional consumer behavior."

"We don’t get them to try our product by convincing them to love our brand. We get them to love our brand by convincing them to try our product."

"In American business, there is nothing stupider than the previous generation of management."

"If the message is right, who cares what screen people see it on? If the message is wrong, what difference does it make?"

"The only form of product information on the planet less trustworthy than advertising is the shrill ravings of web maniacs."

"There's no bigger sucker than a gullible marketer convinced he's missing a trend."

"All ad campaigns are branding campaigns. Whether you intend it to be a branding campaign is irrelevant. It will create an impression of your brand regardless of your intent."

"Nobody ever got famous predicting that things would stay pretty much the same."